Jasper Republican, Volume 1, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 July 1875 — The Grape-Cure. [ARTICLE]

The Grape-Cure.

The grape treatment has been employed with favorable results by patients suffering from bronchitis and consumption in its pretubercular stages. It is especially practiced at Meran, in the Tyrol, whither large numbers of German, Russian and Italian invalids resort to experience its benefits. The patient begins by eating one or two pounds of grapes each day, dividing the quantity into three portions, one of which is taken an hour before breakfast, another before dinner —which occurs between twelve and one o’clock—and the third in the afternoon or evening. After two or three days the quantity is increased by half a pound daily, until it reaches three or four pounds. This amount often proves sufficient, the patient finding, as a rule, that he gains in weight and strength upon it Chronic liver complaints, especially when due to excess in wine-drinking, are, it is said, notably relieved by this treatment, the potash salts in the fruit supplying the element which the wine loses in the process of manufacture. Hepatic dropsy has also been mitigated in this way. One feature in favor of the “cure” is that no exclusive diet is prescribed. In fact the grapes themselves are so nourishing that other food is scarcely needed. A Kentuckian who won’t mortgage his farm and go barefooted for the sake of owning a short-horn heifer is no patriot.